The Willing Changeling
by You talk like a dentist
Summary: Once upon a time, there lived a boy who wished himself away.
1. Chapter 1

**_Before the Beginning_**

 _Once upon a time..._

Stories like this always start with those words don't they? Tales of fantastical worlds, of creatures of legend, of heroic exploits, of tragic loss.

And in this tale of the Underground, how else could this tale begin. So...

Once upon a time, there lived a little boy. In the straight little house of Number 4 Privet drive, so much like Number 5 Privet Drive and practically identical to Number 3 Privet Drive, was a little storage cupboard under the stairs that the Boy called home. During the day, the rumbling, heavy steps of the house's other inhabitants on the staircase would send a sprinkling of sawdust down onto the Boy under the Stairs. He would sneeze and cough, and when his chores took him out into the house he would be smacked for getting his dirty germs all over Dudders' breakfast.

No one said it was a _happy_ tale.

In another boy's room on the floor above, was a huge mess. This boy wasn't very careful at all. This boy had a lot of toys. This boy was the nasty little cousin of the Boy who Lived Below the Stairs.

This boy had glow in the dark stars on his ceiling.

The Boy under the stairs looked up at his own ceiling, like a hundred boxes hung above his head, the twists and turns of the steps. When it was late at night and dark in his cupboard the Boy wished he could have those stars above him. Wished there was a little glow in the darkness.

He wished so hard that one day he looked up to see a starry sky.

Another boy would have screamed but not this one.

Odd things happened around him. This was just one of many.

Lying in his bed the Boy gaped at the sky above. A moon edged into sight and as the night grew it moved across the sky.

Days passed and every night the sky became his ceiling. He was never cold when it was freezing outside, never wet when it rained. But he saw the clouds pass over their world nonetheless.

In another world, in another time he would have first seen this sight in a castle far away with little boys and girls wearing pointed hats roaming its halls.

But that was not this world.

One day, in the year when the boy turned ten, All Hallows Eve approached. Far away from the Boy, people celebrated. T'was the day when years ago a war had ended, t'was the day when the Dark Lord fell.

And for the Boy who Lived under the Stairs, t'was the day when he was orphaned, t'was the day his fate was changed.

For those who still remembered though, t'was the day when the veils between the worlds thinned, t'was the day when the Fae came out to play.

And in the night, under the stairs, looking out at a starry sky, when the eve of Samhain drew close to an end, the Boy who Lived under the Stairs made the purest wish he had ever made.

 _I wish I was anywhere else_

 **Once upon a time, there lived a boy who wished himself away.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Is a human child!" Are the first words Harry heard when he woke up and he dismissed them as part of his dream. A horrid stench had his nose prickling but he slept on. It had been a while since he wasn't woken up by the screeching tones of his aunt telling him to make breakfast.

"Kingy no taking us with him when taking this baby" Another voice said, disgruntled, and he felt something poking his cheek. It took a few blinks but finally Harry woke up.

But the dream didn't end.

How strange, could people dream with their eyes wide open then?

He turned to see who was poking his cheek and found himself staring at a darkened fingernail attached to a spindly, wrinkled finger long beyond what should have been possible from the diminutive owner. Large bulbous eyes stared at him from a leathery face, mottled green and purple and brown, like the most colourful bruise in the world come to life. It wore a colander over its head with a spade on its belt like a sword scabbard.

Another time and Harry would have screamed. As it stood, in the halfway place between sleep and waking, the creature didn't seem too odd. More vivid than any dream he's ever dreamt though, except for that one of the giant and flying under the stars on a motorcycle.

So Harry didn't scream, didn't crawl backwards in shock. He blinked and rubbed his eyes and politely said, "Please stop poking me."

The finger pulled back and Harry got a good look at the other creature next to the one who was poking him. The two looked similar in the way all humans looked similar, but the other one had a little needle like nose, his head was more squat than the other and his skin holds more mossy green than purple to it. Another shift of his shoulders made Harry aware that he wasn't in bed. But where he was, was plenty soft, a peaty sort of ground with slippery moss that felt like the softest of sheets.

Another couple yawns and he stretched his arms over his head only to yelp. A dry branch, thin and sharp cut his arm a little, and it was that sharp pain that makes him realise that this was no dream.

In shock, Harry looked around. How could he possibly have gotten here, wherever 'here' was.

 _(In his heart of hearts though, Harry didn't panic, wasn't particularly surprised. He had turned the Dursleys staircase into a starry sky by_ _ **wanting**_ _it. Was it truly a surprise then that he had dreamed of a forest and it had come real?)_

"Er, excuse me, could you please tell me where I am?"

Needle nose scoffed, "I'za no trechur, no helping Runner!"

"What's a Runner?" Harry asked and the other one answered his query.

" _You_ za Runner!"

"But I'm not Running," Harry wondered what they meant. A Runner? Could you run in a forest? Is it a competition of sorts?

"You haz a thirteen hours to be getting to castle or iza lost forever." The creature who was poking him before said with great relish.

"What's lost forever?"

Their eyes bugged out, "Whatever youza being wishing away!" They said in unison, in shock at his lack of knowledge.

"But I didn't wish anything away!" Harry protested while filing the information away. So, you get to this place by wishing things away, then.

The two shared a horrified look before running off, screaming about 'telling the kingy'. Harry stood up and took a deep breath before instantly cringing. A gust of breeze passing through had brought with it bubbles and a stronger version of the unbearable stench from before.

Now all alone and pressing the too wide collar of the heirs to his face, Harry looked around.

The forest looked almost unreal. The trees were heavy and twisting, the leaves a lush dark green, even the many vines that fell all around them had a sense of unreality to them. Harry had seen such vines before but when they fell from trees they looked dry and brown, as if holding them with the bare hands would scratch up the palm. These vines looked supple even though they were woody. A wax like substance coated them and when Harry went to hold them he felt a soft wood grain like texture, as if someone had covered the vine in candle wax and then drawn lines into them so they'd be less slippery.

Harry took stock of himself. It had been a cold night and in his cupboard the heat of the house didn't reach him. He had fallen asleep wearing two shirts and a sweater, one of Dudley's that fell so long on him that it made the threadbare woollen pants feel warmer. His feet were covered in two pairs of socks, his toes got cold the fastest.

He had no shoes, no gloves, but he would make do, there was nothing for it. He grasped the vine closest it him, tested its strength and began an upward climb. Along the way he saw little hollows in the trees and eyes looking out of them. Little winged people, probably fairies, he thought, began coming out of them. They watched him carefully for a bit, flitting a little bit closer and then away, closer, then away until they began swarming him. Harry ignored them, his ascent to the tree tops far more important but when they began biting him, he flailed, trying to swat them out of the sky. One hand still firmly grasping the vine, he waved the other around but they kept biting him.

His grip started to weaken and Harry was _really_ annoyed now. When one dive bombed him, he reached his hand out and grabbed it quite firmly.

It tittered and buzzed in his hand and the other fairies flew off. He held the squirming little thing tight and to keep his grip on the vine he wound his arm around it instead. The other fairies laughed and laughed, their minuscule little hands pointed at the fairy he held, clearly mocking it.

Eventually it stopped squirming and when Harry finally made it up to a higher branch and settled down there he looked at it carefully. They were annoying him but he didn't want to hurt them.

And he hadn't. The fairy was fine, it's wings weren't even damaged because of the careful way Harry held it. It was simply sad and more than a bit weepy. Harry settled it down on the branch next to him and it just sat there, morose. It's friends flew closer and laughed at it, but they didn't dare get too close to Harry. When one of them did he reached out with his hand and had it in his grasp immediately and flung it away.

They didn't even dare to look at him after that.

But the little fairy next to him giggled a bit. She sidled up next to him and rested there, leaning against his side.

If there was one thing he had learnt from years of running from Dudley and Ripper and Vernon, it was that getting higher was the safest bet. And so, after a few moments' rest, he got up, ready to climb up again, needing to get up to the top of the tree. The fairy left out a mournful sound when he got up and began flying again. Harry was ready to swat her away if she got bite-y, but instead she flew up into his hair and settled into the mess. Harry couldn't help the smile on his face, climbing up the branches again as the fairy moved about, probably making a nest in his dark curls. Up and up he went and with one final heave he found himself looking over the canopy and his jaw dropped at the sight in front of him.

On one side, the forest was splayed out in front of him, its edges fading into the beginnings of a maze that seemed to twist over the land, up and down before fading into the horizon.

And on the other side the forest fell short, he must have been near the very edges, and where the tree line ended, a glimmer was seen, perhaps of water?

Harry tried to remember what the few books he had snuck out to read said about being lost near water. Was he supposed to get away from it or get closer? He pondered the thought carefully and as a breeze stirred the fairy in his hair burrowed down into it. He wondered why until that heinous stench came back and he gagged. His face covered by his collar once more, Harry looked to see where that horrid smell was coming from.

The breeze was wafting over from the water body he could see and that decided it. Getting away from that place was clearly the best way to go.


	3. Chapter 3

Three years had passed since Sarah had stormed Goblin City, left it in shambles, three years and it still bore the marks of it. Oh the city itself was rebuilt, taller, better, stronger than ever but then the marks she'd left weren't exactly physical. Three years and Jareth still heard whispers of the Lady, whispers that would stop when he was noticed. Goblins forgot everything easily, the only thing they remembered was which chicken was winning the tournaments but they hadn't forgotten her.

It made Jareth antsy.

Because Sarah wasn't just a Runner. She was a Runner who had _won_. She wouldn't have done so if it weren't for his turncoat subjects who'd assisted her, he knew that but in deep parts of mind he admitted that that was only scarier. That a mere _child_ could turn his subjects against him so easily.

The three years had made Jareth wary. Strange, how a child could do in a single run what the entire Unseelie court had failed with doing in centuries of assassination attempts.

Paranoia. Once a stranger, now met daily.

"Kingyyyy!" Screamed a goblin who ran into the throne room and Jareth was hardpressed not to snap his fingers and toss him into an oubliette, why did they always have to scream? " Kingy, thezza human boy ina the Enchanted forest!"

A human boy? Jareth didn't remember a Run being underway.

"He'za says he didn't wish anythin' away!"

Well then, perhaps the paranoia was simply a bit of wise caution.

"Get the Goblin Army ready," He commanded them and took owl form, taking flight over the Labyrinth to see this human boy who hadn't wished anything away.

It didn't take long to find the boy. The labyrinth whispered to him and he followed that little thread of a foreign consciousness traversing its ways, to swoop down upon a tree in the forest. The boy looked up when he heard Jareth land upon the branch across from him. He tilted his head, lost in thought, cautious, suspicious but not scared and the fairy that had taken up residence in the nest atop his head squeaked and raged for all of a minute before settling back into the twists of dark hair. His owl eyes, sharper, made out the pout on her face and she bowed in deference to him before ducking closer to the boy's scalp.

A strange boy to be sure. Unstartled, unsurprised by the strange world around him. Curious but not with the same shock and awe that the other humans had been in his Labyrinth. Strange, strange boy. And then he did something that told Jareth exactly why the boy was so strange.

* * *

Harry sat upon a high branch, nestled against the trunk and just watched. Leisure was not something he was used to. For a forest it was very quiet. Harry heard the titters and giggles of the fairies all around him but not much more. The wind buffeted the trees but the waxy leaves did not rustle.

So when the gigantic barn owl landed on the branch across from him, Harry noticed. It did not hoot, didn't swivel its head about looking at everything. It looked at him with its yellow eyes and Harry suddenly realised that it was the first bird he'd seen in the entire forest. Admittedly, he hadn't actually explored the whole forest but as far as his eyes could see he saw no birds, no nests, nothing. It got stranger and stranger.

The fairy in his hair seemed to shiver. His hair felt tugged about as her wings fluttered anxiously before she hunkered down so close to his scalp he could almost feel the little fingers and toes digging in.

She was hiding from the owl, scared of him.

Harry was suspicious, but then he was always suspicious. Another part of him thought it was only natural, perhaps the fairy thought the owl would hunt her down, she was much smaller than it was, after all.

Still, the suspicion lingered.

Harry sighed and as the breath left him he felt an odd sensation, as if a thread that had been wound all around him had loosened. It tugged away from him, pulling taut as if stretched thin and from the way he was pulled with it he knew it was moving out towards the owl.

The moment it touched the bird, Harry felt it. It was like that time when on a very cold day, Aunt Petunia finally gave in once some neighbours made noises about how he shivered, making a face and letting him use the hot water. As if the sun had suddenly come out after snow and he was bathed in soft heat, not burning but overwhelming in a way Harry had never known anything to be.

And just as quickly as he felt it sink in the owl reeled, flying backwards and away from him in a way that Harry didn't know birds could do. And then the owl turned into a person and it made a little bit more sense then. The man wore a feathered cloak over heavy armour, clothes that looked like they'd come straight out of some movie. He stood on the finger thin ends of the branch but it did not groan under the man's weight, didn't even sway.

Not quite human.

Then again, neither was Harry.

* * *

"And who might you be?" Jareth asked as pleasantly as he could, keeping his sharp teeth hidden. It wouldn't do to spook the boy.

The _wizard_ boy.

There hadn't been a wizard in the Labyrinth in centuries, not since the tales of the Fae and their magic had been banned once the Statute of Secrecy had been enforced. The Sidhe hadn't been forgotten, but no longer were they invoked as Gods, only whispered about as Those Who Would Not Be Called, the boundaries between the worlds distinct and strong when once they had never existed.

If the boy was here he had brought himself there of his own power. It was rare and powerful magic, the kind borne out of desperation, aided by the thinning of the veils.

The little part of him that had been whipped into a frenzy at the thought of an invasion quelled. A child this young could be taught rules. A child this young could learn to fear and respect Jareth. Obedience, now that perhaps he would not have, but the boy could be kept from turning his denizens against him.

Could, should, _would._

For the first time in three years the Goblin King felt the bubbling of anticipation inside of him.

* * *

A/N: I had exams and assignments and other assorted things in my life that kept me from updating, sorry about that. To the Guest reviewer 'Me' who asked for an update for their birthday, I'm sorry I couldn't update on time and Happy belated birthday.

And thanks to anyone who reviewed/faved/followed. Your feedback is appreciated.

On a sidenote, these events are taking place on 31st Oct 1990/the day after, Harry is ten. I don't know that Sarah will make any kind of appearance, I do want to keep the focus on Harry and the world of the Labyrinth rather than the Aboveground/Muggle/Wizarding world.

Thank you all for reading!


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